Douglas Crockford of JSON fame has written a beautiful book about JavaScript.
First of all - at only 170 pages it is short. Even though some of the key points are repeated through the book it's dense with information. You don't need any JavaScript experience, but it's not a "beginning programming" book so if you haven't been programming before this is not the right book for you.
Reading this book a couple of times will give you an appreciation for the JavaScript language that you almost certainly didn't have before. It'll give you tools to write better programs that you and others will actually be able to maintain over time.
I've learned lots of little things that I maybe knew from experience, but now I know and I know why.
This book will help you battle with JavaScript rather than against it.
(this review was also posted on amazon.com)
After reading half the book I went and bought a bunch of extra copies and had them sent to people I work with who are working with JavaScript.
